In many businesses, recording various data on a map, chart, graph or the like requires repetative actions of the physical activity of adding one or more signs, symbols or indicia to the record being kept. The recording of sales efforts at various location on a map of sales territories may require marking the locations with a number of different indicia. In one form, the map may have color headed pins pressed in various areas to show different activities, or in other forms, a particular mark may be made on the map indicating the same type of information as the colored pins. A geological map for showing the location of oil, gas, oil and gas and dry wells, for example, is usually marked with any of four or more symbols indicating the well type. Chemists may use a number of symbols in the many types of writings required of them. Other business repetitively use other types of symbols for many purposes. In many cases, the person marking the map, chart or graph looks up the information, finds the location for marking, and uses the finger of one hand to point to the location. The user's free hand is used for a pencil, pen, stamp, pin or other symbol or marker for adding it to the document. In the marking of a graph, map, chart, etc., where several stamps are used, the information is first read and dexterity to a high degree is necessary to find location on the document and then find the correct symbol to be affixed to the correct location on the document.
For the oil and gas business, maps of small portions of states are used to provide a showing of land sections (1 mile by 1 mile) in usually 1/4 to 3/8 inch squares. The drilling activity in any section is recorded by one or more of four symbols which indicate the character of the well, including oil wells, oil-gas wells, gas wells and dry holes. Since the section representation is quite small the symbols must be necessarily small to fit on the map. Such symbols have hereto been posted by hand, making it a laborious and time consuming project. Usually, drilling reports are available weekly, and therefore the manual posting is normally preformed weekly.